Maya: nHair

Course details

Get tried and true techniques for creating, styling, animating, and rendering hair with nHair in Autodesk Maya. Aaron F. Ross will show you how to prepare your mesh; control for stiffness, shape, and curl; trim and extend follicles; style hair with curves; and adjust color, translucency, and specular highlights. The last chapter shows you how to render nHair with Maya and mental ray.

Learning objectives
Prepping a model for hair
Adding nHair
Setting dynamic properties
Adjusting clump, curl, and twist
Painting follicle attributes
Creating long hairstyles with curves
Applying nConstraints
Creating and rendering an nCache

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - Using the exercise files

1. Getting Started with nHair

03 - Understanding Nucleus nHair
04 - Loading nHair examples
05 - Prepping a model for nHair
06 - Laying out UVs
07 - Adding nHair
08 - Choosing Create nHair options
09 - Analyzing the nHair node structure
10 - Displaying curves and converting selections
11 - Tuning the Nucleus solver

2. Defining hairSystem Attributes

12 - Setting display quality
13 - Choosing a simulation method
14 - Setting dynamic properties
15 - Controlling stiffness with Bend Resistance
16 - Controlling collisions
17 - Adjusting forces such as mass and drag
18 - Defining Clump and Hair Shape attributes
19 - Adjusting Clump Twist, Clump Flatness, and Clump Curl
20 - Changing hair shape with displacements
21 - Shading the hairSystem

3. Working with Follicles

22 - Creating follicles with the Paint Hair Follicles tool
23 - Selecting follicles in the viewport
24 - Moving follicles in UV space
25 - Trimming and extending follicles
26 - Painting follicle attributes
27 - Painting follicle color
28 - Setting individual follicle attributes
29 - Converting the follicle simulation method
30 - Linking objects to surfaces with follicles

4. Styling nHair

31 - Creating production-quality nHair
32 - Transforming curves
33 - Using Start Curve Attract
34 - Modifying curves
35 - Creating long hairstyles
36 - Locking curve length
37 - Editing curve CVs
38 - Applying nConstraints

5. Rendering nHair

39 - Creating an nCache
40 - Rendering in Maya software
41 - Rendering in mental ray
42 - Enabling Multi Streaks

Conclusion

43 - Goodbye